PHILADELPHIA — To the surprise of pretty much no one, the Phillies did not serve qualifying offers to free agents Roy Halladay and Carlos Ruiz Monday, meaning that those free agents can be signed by other teams without the Phillies receiving compensation.

A year ago it seemed unlikely Halladay, a two-time Cy Young winner and perhaps the best right-handed starter for the 10 years from 2002-2011, would be so easily dismissed — even after a subpar 2012. However, after going 4-5 with a 6.82 ERA and one shoulder surgery in 2013 with the Phillies, the 36-year-old is going to find it tough to get much guaranteed money at all from a team.

After the first half of 2013 it seemed a no-brainer for the Phils to take a pass on giving Ruiz a one-year, $14.1 million offer to protect their free-agent compensation. When the team sputtered into the All-Star break, the 34-year-old catcher had a .613 OPS with a 25-game drug suspension and disabled-list stint to his name. However, Ruiz had a .741 OPS with 31 RBIs in 47 starts after the break to breathe a little life into his contract aspirations.

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That wasn’t enough to convince the Phillies to make him an offer that probably will be the amount of base money the injury-prone veteran gets in a two-year, incentive-laden deal on the open market.

Only 13 free agents did receive qualifying offers from the teams for whom they played in 2013, and a few of the outfielders on the list — St. Louis’ Carlos Beltran, Cincinnati’s Shin-Soo Choo, Boston’s Jacoby Ellsbury and Texas’ Nelson Cruz — are players the Phillies will have at least base interest in pursuing. None of that trio should feel inclined to accept that deal in the coming week, but by making the offer those teams are entitled to a first-round pick from any of the teams selecting between Nos. 11-30 in next June’s draft.

The good news for the Phillies and their awful 2013 season is that their seventh overall selection won’t be ceded if they sign any of those four or the other nine players made qualifying offers.

If the Phillies decide they want to keep throwing wildly high amounts of money at starting pitchers, a couple of the higher-end arms in free agency — Kansas City’s Ervin Santana and Cleveland’s Ubaldo Jimenez — also got qualifying offers and give the Phillies an opportunity to use the compensation-protected booby prize their 89-loss abomination has provided them.